Night had fallen. In New York, beneath an abandoned villa, was an underground laboratory.
This had once been some tycoon's safe house. Now, Lily Williams had turned it into their secret base.
Kate Bishop sat nearby, anxiously watching Clint Barton as he leaned against the wall.
The former Hawkeye looked pale. Though Miles's "psychic surgery" had restored his sanity, five years as a zombie had left his body steeped in deathly decay.
On the other side, Miles stared intently at the genetic analyzer's screen, rapidly absorbing information about the Zombie Virus.
"Very interesting..."
Miles murmured to himself. "It's unlike any known genetic structure on Earth... Or rather, this virus has no relatively fixed genetic sequence at all."
"Aurora, conduct further molecular genetic sequencing... Uh..." As he spoke, Miles suddenly gave a self-mocking laugh. "I almost forgot. Aurora isn't here."
"Who's Aurora?" Lily Williams walked over and asked.
"My companion. I can introduce you to her someday." Miles answered casually, then continued, "But back to the Zombie Virus. At present, it's difficult to even call its primary genetic components 'nucleic acids' or 'proteins.' It's unbelievable that such a life-form exists..."
"Not only that," Lily added. "This genetic molecular structure is even smaller than the smallest microscopic particle humans can currently observe."
"In theory, matter like this shouldn't be capable of self-replication. But in reality... at the microscopic level, viral molecules are less like 'organic molecules' and more like randomly dispersed probability clouds..."
"In other words, under microscopic observation, viral molecules may not exist at all, yet they are everywhere..." Miles picked up where she left off, falling into thought. "The essence of Zombie Virus infection isn't 'viral molecules replicating themselves,' but 'one viral molecule creating more viral molecules out of thin air'..."
He let out a sigh.
"No wonder it was